For the upholsterable base of seating furniture, upright panels of polyurethane or other low-density resiliently-compressive foam are utilized along the armrests and intervening backrest portions. As typified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,081,130, wood, metallic, or other non-resilient inflexible framework has been traditionally employed to uprightly support the occupant bearing foam panels. However, in recent years, there has been the quest to lessen the amount of the supporting framework whereby the seating is more readily portable and manufacturing cost is reduced.
Though it would be idealic to totally eliminate the non-resilient inflexible supporting framework from foam base seating, such has not been practical heretofore. For example, upright foam panels having the low-density consistent with high resiliency for occupant comfort inherently lack structural strength; thus, such low-density foam panels are undesireably readily deflectable away from the seated occupant, especially at the upright armrest foam panels. If the upright foam panels are selected of high-density, the inherently higher structural strength might adequately resist deflection away from the seated occupant; however, such high-density foam panels are insufficiently resiliently-compressive and offer uncomfortable hardness to the seated occupant. Moreover, such high-density foam panels are economically prohibitive, exceeding the cost of the inflexible supporting frameworks sought to be eliminated.